Silicone in breast implants are bulletproof

Question

"Doctors noted that the silicone implant was likely responsible for deflecting the bullet’s trajectory – ultimately saving the woman’s life."

- CNN

Comments

The claim that "silicone in breast implants are bulletproof" is very misleading and false. The link to the article is from CNN and the actual headline for that article is "Woman’s breast implant deflects bullet, saving her life".
So technically, the womans breast implant caught the bullet and saved her life. Saying that silicone in breast implants is bulletproof isn't true because it happened by chance that the woman's breast implant caught the bullet and prevented further injuries. The article says that SAGE medical journal published a study that said the breast implant deflected the bullet away from the 30 year old woman's vital organs. The rest of the article mainly talks about the medical part and the woman's other injuries and how she's doing. All in all, people shouldn't go in with the fact thinking that getting and having silicone in breast implants will therefore protect you from bullets.

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In this article, CNN tells a story about how a women's life was saved because of her breast implants. They explain that a woman was shot and hit in the breast and survived because the silicone of the implant changed the direction of the bullet which saved her life “The implant caused the change in the trajectory of the bullet," . No where in this article does CNN claim that breast implants are bullet proof, they only claim that the silicone breast implant stopped the bullet from a wound that could have been fatal.

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The claim “silicone in breast implants are bulletproof” is very misleading. In the article linked the quote: “Doctors noted that the silicone implant was likely responsible for deflecting the bullet’s trajectory – ultimately saving the woman’s life”, is taken out of context to the rest of the article. Though the breast implant may have deflected the bullet in that case, it doesn’t imply all implants have that effect. In this CNN article, the implant caught the bullet, it didn't deflect or bounce off. In an article where a plastic surgeon from Utah and his colleagues shot bullets through breast implants, help us better understand this concept. “Let’s say that the average human chest cavity is 6” deep. This means if you had breast implants and were shot with a handgun, the bullet would only go 5” deep into your chest cavity.” (Dr. Adams) https://www.dr-adams.com/blog/can-a-breast-implant-stop-a-bullet/ The bullet doesn’t “stop” or bounce off the implant, but a small chance it will “marginally protect you”. Don’t get silicone implants to protect you from bullets please!

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The claim you have provided is false and very deceptive. Saying "Silicone in breast implants are bulletproof" is taken completely out of context from the passage. Yes in the case of the women from the CNN article, the silicone did deflect the bullet and save the women's life, however; your claim is a huge long shot in saying the silicone used for breast implants are bulletproof. Seen in an experiment, a plastic surgeon claimed that "They found that the implant reduced the average distance the bullet traveled into the gel by about 20%... Let’s say that the average human chest cavity is 6” deep. This means if you had breast implants and were shot with a handgun, the bullet would only go 5” deep into your chest cavity." This heavily shows that a breast implant is no where near "bulletproof" and the women from the article got extremely lucky that the bullet did not completely penetrate her and create more injuries or even death.

https://www.dr-adams.com/blog/can-a-breast-implant-stop-a-bullet/

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The claim references an instance in where a woman was shot and fortunately survived due to the silicone breast implants in her chest. While there is truth in the fact that the woman was able to survive due to her silicone breast implants, it is not safe to state that silicone breast implants are bulletproof, as the claim can be very misleading due to the fact that silicone itself is not bulletproof.

In a study published by the National Library of Medicine, it is stated that "The impact of a gunshot is tied to a bullet's path and placement within the body.12 The extent of the resulting trauma is influenced by multiple factors, one of which being the physical characteristics of the tissue that has been penetrated.12 Thus, if there is some sort of barrier (eg, bone or implant) to slow or deflect a bullet, it may serve as a protective factor." This means that while the bullet was affected by the silicone and different parts of the patients body, the silicone itself within the breast implant is not bulletproof

In a YouTube video posted by TAOFLEDERMAUS, a test is conducted where different  rounds of bullet are shot at a standard silicone breast.  in the video we can see that silicone breast implants do affect that trajectory and impact, it is negligible at best so they are in fact NOT bulletproof,


sources
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9949879/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHn3RPdGIg

Answer 1

The claim that silicone breast implants are bulletproof is completely false, and CCN is continuing to spread misinformation. The article talks about how a woman's breast implant was able to help change the trajectory of a bullet; this change in trajectory did lead to the woman keeping her life. However, the bullet actually ruptured the silicone implant, which completely disproves this claim that they are "bulletproof.". Even though the silicone implant stopped the woman from dying due to a fatal wound, she still ended up with the bullet wound, broken ribs, and broken implants. That implant is definitly not bulletproof!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/americas/breast-implant-bullet-wound-wellness-intl-scli/index.html

Answer 2

As other answers have pointed out before me, this claim is mostly false. While silicone implants have been found to be able to redirect bullets, they are not able to directly stop a bullet. The original article did not make this claim. There have been instances of other people miraculously surviving a bullet wound due to silicone implants however, so I wouldn’t completely discount the potential life saving effects of implants.

Sources: 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9949879/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2513826X19898821

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/americas/breast-implant-bullet-wound-wellness-intl-scli/index.html

 

Answer 3

The claim above that "Silicone in breast implants are bulletproof" is very false. In the article given by the publisher, CNN claims that a woman's life was saved because her silicone breast implants helped stop a bullet but no where did they say that the silicone in the breast implant is bulletproof only that it stopped from doing more damage to her. In an article titled, "Can a Breast Implant Stop a Bullet" by Dr-Adams.com. They ran an experiment to see if this claim was true and they came to the conclusion quickly that, "It's safe to say that breast implants cannot stop a bullet." All in all, This claim is false and breast implants are NOT bulletproof. 

https://www.dr-adams.com/blog/can-a-breast-implant-stop-a-bullet/

Answer 4

Silicone breast implants are not bulletproof. The article that was brought up is really misleading and made a story into something that it is not. In the story a woman with breast implants had a bullet shot towards her and thankfully for her, her implants stopped it from puncturing anymore than in her implant and into her organs. This article does not prove that implants are silicon, it just shows that it can happen in certain circumstances. The article claims this is "one of only a handful of instances recorded in medical literature where a breast implant played a role in saving a patient’s life," but there is no proven way of the actual silicone always being bulletproof. This claim exaggerates the safety that silicone implants can cause and although it did save her life, it does not in anyway prove the original claim. These implants may have some kind of protection but not 100% bulletproof. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/americas/breast-implant-bullet-wound-wellness-intl-scli/index.html

Answer 5

This claim that breast implants are misleading and false because after during some research I came across multiple articles from CNN, ABC7 Los Angeles, and Science Alert about how a women was saved by her silicone breast implant because the bullet went through the implant. If there were other cases of this happening then maybe it would be more true but it seems that she just got lucky. According to CNN if the bullet would have gone through the left side of her chest where the heart and lungs are than it would have been way more serious but, since the shot was on the other side it wasn't as serious as it could have been which supports my claim of she got lucky. Though, ABC7 says that the doctor that operated on her says that she could have died if it weren't for the implant which makes me think even if the implant saved her life it is still not bullet proof because the bullet still went through the implant it didn't go all the way to the women's insides, so it's not bullet proof but does have a small possibility of saving someone's life. I got my information from the given article in the claim and ABC7: https://abc7.com/breast-implants-stop-bullet-silicone-save-womans-life/6120472/